Today is Wednesday, Dec. 31, the 366th and final day of 2008. On this date in 1879, Thomas Edison

Today is Wednesday, Dec. 31, the 366th and final day of 2008. On this date in 1879, Thomas Edison first publicly demonstrates his electric incandescent light in Menlo Park, N.J.

In 1775, the British repulse an attack by Continental Army generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold at Quebec; Montgomery is killed. In 1857, Britain’s Queen Victoria decides to make Ottawa the capital of Canada. In 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife, Lucy, celebrate their silver anniversary (actually, a day late) by re-enacting their wedding ceremony in the White House. In 1908, Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal is born in Buczacs in what was then Austria-Hungary.

December 31, 1983: A defective gas heater is blamed for a fire that killed Isaac Hunter in a house at 417 Lansing Ave., Youngstown, and injured another man.

The Youngstown Hospital Association increases the rates for private rooms $13 to $184 a day and semi-private $10 to $169.

The Rev. Daniel Dalton Sr., former pastor of Bethel AME Church, New Castle, is named pastor of Reed’s Chapel AME Church on Jacobs Road.

December 31, 1968: The body of Ralph Gates, 62, a merchant seaman, is found in the burned out rubble of the Fountain Inn Hotel in New Castle. Another man is still missing following a fire at the E. Washington Street hotel a week earlier.

Shareholders of United Engineering & Foundry Co. approve a merger with Wean United Inc., which makes a wide variety of machinery and equipment for the basic steel, automobile, plastics and rubber industries.

The eye-bar suspension bridge spanning the Ohio River at St. Marys, a twin of the Silver Bridge that collapsed and claimed 46 lives at Point Pleasant, is closed because of the “hazard of a catastrophic failure.”

December 31, 1958: Three 15-year-old boys, sophomores at Cardinal Mooney High School, are brutally attacked by a gang of eight teen-age toughs armed with clubs and belts near the Growers Market on Pyatt Street.

Walter H. Paulo, general manager of the Isaly Dairy Co., challenges newspaper, radio and television representatives to join in a campaign that will result in Youngstown regaining its position as the number one market for U.S. savings bonds purchased through the payroll savings plan in the nation. Youngstown held the lead in 1954; it is now held by Akron.

Mayor Frank X. Kryzan names Atty. John Leskovyansky first assistant law director, to succeed Frank J. Battisti, who was elected to the common pleas court.

December 31, 1933: C.W. Summer, librarian of the Reuben McMillan Free Library, announces that for the second year in a row circulation of library books will exceed 1 million.

John G. Cooper, veteran Republican congressman from Youngstown, will be the ranking Republican member on the House committee on interstate and foreign commerce when the new Congress convenes Jan. 3.